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Category: Reducing Stress

  • Stress Reduction: Professional Help

    In the last byte we looked at how opening up leads to reduction in stress. In today’s byte we venture further to understand what sort of professional help would be required when an individual opens up and how this could help reduce stress.

    Professionally helping relationships help people in opening up through confessions. These could be in the form of – psychological counseling, career counseling, physical therapy, medical treatment, surgical intervention and many similar therapeutic techniques.

    Early detection of distress and strain reactions, if combined with prompt professional treatment can be instrumental in many scenarios of permanent physical and psychological damage.

    All this while, we have looked at how organizational stress prevention is done, there is also another approach called COMPREHENSIVE HEALTH PROMOTION that is aimed at establishing a “strong and resistant host” by building on individual prevention and lifestyle change. We would only limit ourselves at giving this direction here and now take a move to the interpersonal processes that form part of the organizational behavior studies.

  • Stress Reduction: Opening Up

    In the last byte, we looked at relaxation and diet as means to prevent/reduce stress. In today’s byte we look at how opening up helps reduces/prevent stress.

    Writing some of our experiences in diaries or discussing with friends are some common things that we do – these activities help reduce stress! Let’s look in closely.

    Almost all of us experience traumatic/stressful/painful event at once instance or another during the course of our life’s journey. Sharing these or discussing these with another person is not always easy but research has shown that through such discussions with others there are health benefits, immune system improvements and even healing that accrue. In fact between people who write about traumatic events and those who write about non-traumatic events it was found that those who wrote about traumatic events were seen to have a significant health benefits.

    It is not just confiding in other people that helps reduce stress – it would suffice even if one were to write a few notes on their daily experience in their personal diary. The typical entry into such personal diaries is about the most troubling thoughts, feelings, and emotions during the course of the day.

    To summarize the above, it is the process of opening up and confession that is found to counter the detrimental effects of stress.

  • Stress Reduction: Relaxation Training and Diet

    In the last byte, we looked at physical exercise as a means for preventive stress. In today’s byte, we look at relaxation training and diet as means to help in preventive stress management.

    Relaxation has been found to be a natural counter response to stress for many stressful situations. Hebert Benson was one of the first to identify this relation. Benson found that the Judeo-Christian people find their relaxation technique to handle stress through their time-honored tradition of prayer. The people in the eastern hemisphere handle this through meditation. The theological/religious component is only another layer that surrounds the fundamental relaxation mechanism.

    While all the techniques discussed thus far on how the individual could help prevent stress are all have a direct impact, diet plays an indirect role in stress and stress management. Diet with high sugar content is found to stimulate stress; food with high cholesterol could adversely affect the blood chemistry etc. A good dietary practice helps contribute to overall health and makes the person less vulnerable to distress. There are 2 forms of diet that could help reduce stress:

    1. Reversal diet
    2. Preventive diet

  • Stress Reduction: Physical Exercise

    In the last byte, we looked at leisure time activities as a source of stress reduction. In the currently byte, we look at physical exercise as a means to reduce stress.

    Stress reduction through physical activities has been found to be extremely effective as a secondary stress prevention activity. Physical Exercises have been part of almost every one’s life during their initial schooling days, but if we carefully think of it – we realize that this really was implemented as part of education through classes, the extension of exercise into later life was just a choice that student! The increasing yoga, physical fitness clubs, etc are all ways which people resort to in attempt to reduce stress. In Military Organizations, this is done through physical fitness standards that the focus would need to live up to.

    Even a simple flexibility training help people reduce stress. This training focuses on the muscular contraction associated with the stress response. Stress response also affects the muscles – the flexor muscles which prepares a person to react/respond to the stress situation – a fight or flee response that we had mentioned that comes along with a person. The muscle stress is released through stretch during the flexibility training and helps relax the muscle. This helps maintain joint mobility, increase strength and plays an important role in reducing injury.

  • Stress Reduction: Leisure Time Activities

    In the last byte, we looked at time management and how it reduces stress. In today’s byte, we look at leisure time activities and the role they play in reducing stress.

    It is generally found that people chase high achievement in their life – they therefore strive unremitted. Taking a break or a vacation is something that people believe that their work ethics or cultural barrier wouldn’t permit! Leisure is thought of as a luxury among working people. The leisure time activities provide employees a refreshing time – it helps rest and recovers from strenuous activities either at home or at work place.

    The leisure time activities need not be sleeping or relaxing at home, it could be cleaning the house or even gardening. The essential aspect of these activities is their ability to reduce the stress and increase the benefits of pleasure for the individual attempting to do it. The key to effectively use leisure time is making it enjoyable.  One could think of using the time to be spontaneous, natural, and joyous, connect with people with whom they live in their neighborhood etc.

    If breaks are not managed well, they could lead to job burnouts, and this could result in fadeout for the employee. It is important that vacations and leisure breaks are taken periodically and should be a recurring activity.

  • Stress Reduction – Time Management

    In the last byte, we looked at how positive thinking could help reduce stress levels compared with a person negative thinking. In today’s byte, we look time management and see how an individual’s time management helps reduces stress.

    One of the most common sources of stress is improper time management. This is not just the case in a work setting but also for individual at school! Some symptoms of inefficient time management include a constant rush, missing deadlines, a feeling of being down by large work load, insufficient rest time and indecision too in many cases!

    By being able to manage time at a macro level using an effective technique – GP3 could prove extremely effective. Let’s see what the GP3 stands for:
    G – Goals: Set goals that are challenging yet attainable
    P – Prioritizing: Prioritize the set goals in terms of their relative importance/urgency
    P – Planning: Plan to attain these goals through setting the specific tasks, activities, scheduling, or even delegation
    P – Praising: Encourage yourself on achieving the specific goals.

    This method is found to extremely effective in managing time well, and thus reduces stress. There is a detailed article that has been written on time management at the link here.

  • Positive Thinking – Reducing Stress

    In the last byte, we began discussion about individual based means to reducing stress. In today’s byte, we look at how positive thinking plays a role in reducing stress.

    How does an individual explain the good and bad events that happen in their lives – some think about it in a positive or at least a non-negative style? A positive, optimistic exploratory style is a habit of thinking that is learned over time – there could definitely be some people who are inherently positive in their thinking means. Pessimism is an exploratory style that could lead to depression, physical health problems, and low levels of achievements. The people with a positive thinking and an optimistic outlook are found to be more physically healthy and reach out more achievement.

    If we look at how people with positive mind set think, you would observe that they don’t consider bad events and difficult times in their lives as temporary, limited and caused by things other than themselves. They live through all this through all these difficult times with hope. They also take credit of the better things that happen in their lives – they also extrapolate these events to be more pervasive and general – not specific to a one time experience.

    Could optimism be learnt? – Though not as a natural form, the nonnegative thinking approach could be learned – This is called Learned Optimism. It begins with identifying pessimistic thoughts and then distracting themselves from these thoughts or disputing them with evidence and alternative thoughts. This non-negative thinking is part of a five dimensions of Positive Organizational Behavior (POB) – the other 4 dimensions are:

    1. Confidence/self-efficacy
    2. Hope
    3. Subjective well-being/happiness
    4. Emotional Intelligence.